There was the advantage of not going to that dinner. Had I been
invited, as you were, I should have pestered Prue about the buttons on
my white waistcoat, instead of leaving her placidly piecing adolescent
trowsers. She would have been flustered, fearful of being too late, of
tumbling the garment, of soiling it, fearful of offending me in some
way, (admirable woman!) I, in my natural impatience, might have let
drop a thoughtless word, which would have been a pang in her heart and
a tear in her eye, for weeks afterward.

As I walked nervously up the avenue (for I am unaccustomed to prandial
recreations), I should not have had that solacing image of quiet Prue,
and the trowsers, as the back-ground in the pictures of the gay
figures I passed, making each, by contrast, fairer. I should have been
wondering what to say and do at the dinner. I should surely have been
very warm, and yet not have enjoyed the rich, waning sunlight. Need I
tell you that I should not have stopped for apples, but instead of
economically tumbling into the street with apples and apple-women,
whereby I merely rent my trowsers across the knee, in a manner that
Prue can readily, and at little cost, repair. I should, beyond
peradventure, have split a new dollar-pair of gloves in the effort of
straining my large hands into them, which would, also, have caused me
additional redness in the face, and renewed fluttering.

Above all, I should not have seen Aurelia passing in her carriage, nor
would she have smiled at me, nor charmed my memory with her radiance,
nor the circle at dinner with the sparkling Iliad of my woes. Then at
the table, I should not have sat by her. You would have had that
pleasure; I should have led out the maiden aunt from the country, and
have talked poultry, when I talked at all. Aurelia would not have